“Nothing like a busted Amtrak train to bring me face-to-face with the one man Republicans would love — and I mean LOVE — to get into the 2012 race for the Republican presidential nomination,” Capehart writes in the newspaper’s PostPartisan blog.

Bush and his wife, Columba, were just a few rows behind Capehart, who confesses: “So, of course, I couldn’t resist asking him a question he has heard myriad times. ‘Is there any possible way your party could convince you to run for president,’ I asked? ‘I don’t think so,’ he said. ‘A lot of people are asking me that, and it’s flattering. But the Magic Eight Ball says, ‘Outlook not so good.’ ”

Bush has adopted that response as his mantra amid overtures from party insiders pressing him to run, although he usually leaves ’em guessing about 2016.

Capehart opines that the GOP field of candidates is lackluster, citing as evidence that fact that a Gallup survey found that 52 percent of Republicans favor having a third party.